Should a voter be concerned with a candidate’s winnability? This question has been swimming in my head since yesterday after I got into a discussion with someone who feels that the 2010 presidential elections will be a fight between good and evil.
First off, I disagree that the elections should be viewed as a fight between good and evil. This is nonsense. In the first place, who’s to claim that he or she represents good? Senator Noynoy Aquino? Oh please. Can we please take off our beergoggles and see the elections for what it really is. It’s just a contest among politicians who have it in their heads that they have what it takes to govern the country.
Anyway, the discussion touched briefly on the subject of winnability. The person I was talking to said he will not vote for anyone identified with President Gloria Arroyo. He explained his stand by stressing that voting for a PGMA ally is like voting against the prosecution of PGMA after she steps down. He ended his argument by saying that a PGMA candidate is not winnable at this time and that even if he didn’t have so much hatred for the incumbent he will not waste his vote on such a candidate. He will certainly lose, he said.
I can’t say I agree with his argument. While I’m all for pursuing the appropriate cases that may be filed against PGMA as soon as she loses her immunity, I am of the opinion that this issue should not even be a deciding factor in our choice of president. Should the prosecution of PGMA even be a major thrust of whoever will replace her? Last time I checked, the position of president is not a prosecutory one.
Going back to the issue of winnability. My belief is that, as voters, we should not really bother with whether a candidate stands a chance of winning or not. It is simply not our concern. The only people who should lose sleep over such matters are the candidates themselves and their campaign managers. For me, voters need only concern themselves with a candidate’s character, track record and platform. I would even say that of this three a candidate’s platform should already be enough.
Some may ask, “Won’t I be wasting my vote if I give it to a candidate who has a very slim chance of winning?” The simple answer is no. Who’s to say this or that candidate can’t win anyway? The survey firms? Ignore them and the crap they produce. Just do due diligence. Examine the platforms of the various candidates and pick the one that you think has the best set of plans for the country.
If you’re not convinced then go ahead and vote for the candidate perceived as being winnable. Just remember winnability is no indicator of future performance nor is it a gauge of anything other than a candidate’s popularity, which is more often than not undeserved.
It’s a bad habit of only picking the fights one thinks he could win. For other scenarios where the odds are tilted on losing, they’ve set Forget It as default.
Hey, Noypi rhymes with Mediocrity.
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Bertrand de Jouvenel cautioned us that “Power changes its appearance but not its reality,” being cynical i can’t help but agree. Being only human, however, I chose to exercise my right to for hope the best in humanity and so voted for Salonga, and Roco when they contested the presidency despite the all-too-obvious indications that they will lose.
Since you still believe in the possibility that a candidate’s character, track record and platform, especially platform, would somehow betray his fitness to govern, then i suspect you are not half the cynic that I am.
At the time when platforms were in vogue, candidates simply tailor-fit them to the voters’ preference to the point that all platforms became the same.
I say to believe in a candidate’s platform is to believe he will honor the same.
As such, then, it is not platform that should be held as primary but character.
If a candidate has genuine character, he will present not a just a respectable platform but a platform we can reasonably believe he will carry out.
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lpgd Reply:
September 25th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
hey joseph kamusta?
i know what you mean about candidates tailor fitting their platforms. i’m not sure though if the past or even present “platforms” you’re referring to were or really are platforms. most probably those were just mission vision statements which really tend to be nothing more than motherhood statements.
what we should be clamoring for are specific plans. the more detailed the better.
i’m convinced “hope” is overrated. i’m cynical that way. : )
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I agree with all your points.
If we vote for the Miss Universe, does this mean that we don’t vote for the one who we think is beautiful but someone who has the chances of winning?
This is not like choosing stocks.
The goal is not to win but to express our own opinions as voters.
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